Megan Berry, Social Media Addict

I LOVE tech. Yes, I’m on the marketing/social side, but that doesn’t make my love of technology any less fervent. I don’t want to talk about how many guys or girls are in tech. I want to talk about where it’s going. What’s next. Exciting shit. But instead, we have brogramming and “fun” videos to attract developers

And you know, what? The answer is not lightening up, as Katie can explain so much better than I can. Instead, how about we stop making these “jokes” and actually move on. As in, let’s stop this brogramming shit, recognize there are amazing women programmers, amazing women in tech and move on collaborating on awesome ideas. K, thanks.

I have a post in Mashable right now about how to build a community around your startup…

Building a community around your startup can be one of the cheapest ways to create momentum for your product. A community is much more than a one-time marketing campaign, and can help you throughout your company’s life cycle if you take the time to grow it right.

I’m excited to share that I’m the featured blogger on BlogHerTech today! A big thank you to BlogHer for the shoutout and to all of you reading my musings here. It’s little surprises like this that keep me writing.

“I went through my LinkedIn connections and declined all the ones from marketers.” I’m sorry, what? This is a quote from someone who I respect very much. Apart from the fact that my job title includes marketing, it made me wonder, is marketing a dirty word?

Then there’s Fred Wilson. Iconic VC and all-around smart dude.

“I believe that marketing is what you do when your product or service sucks or when you make so much profit on every marginal customer that it would be crazy to not spend a bit of that profit acquiring more of them (coke, zynga, bud, viagra).” – Fred Wilson

If you read the full post, it’ll quickly become clear that (as Seth Godin points out in the first comment), that you could easily replace advertising for marketing in his post, and the meaning remains the same. Looking at marketing as being all about advertising takes a very limited view. We’ve spent a total of about $500 in my entire time at Klout, but I assure you we’ve had plenty to do in the way of marketing. So, what is marketing all about? I asked this question on Google+ and some great answers:

“What business are you in? Who is your customer? What is your value proposition to your customer? How do you find these customers, attract their attention, persuade them to keep coming back to you?” – Howard Rheingold

To my mind, these are interesting and challenging problems. I like how Howard Rheingold phrased it as a series of questions, your job as a marketer is to find those answers. For some you’re dealing with a set product and working to maximize it’s potential. Yet, another aspect of marketing is working with product to find the slight alterations that will help sell your product to the masses. That is neither an easy, nor uninteresting task so I wonder where marketing gets lost in translation and becomes the art of pulling the wool over people eyes, being sleazy, or making up for a bad product.

Are marketers bad at marketing ourselves? I think the truth here is that the good marketers aren’t worried about marketing themselves as people in the larger sense, they’re focused on the product, the problems, and the solutions like everyone else in the company. When done right, marketing seamlessly helps make the product look more awesome and engages and maximizes the community. The public image of marketers is based on the few who are in the spotlight. So let’s all take the time to notice the marketers, social media experts, and community managers who are actually doing it right and making us look good. We all thank you.

Anyone who has a blog, has a Twitter account or manages a community has dealt with haters, aka trolls. It’s an appropriate name because you’re just moving forward, happily publishing things and having conversations and then, bam. Troll. Demanding payment before you can move forward. Luckily, haters don’t just make life harder, they teach you — about yourself, about any brand you’re representing and about life. So here are 5 things I’ve learned from haters.

If you have haters, it means you’re on to something. Think of all the cliches I can spout about this: the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. All pressis good press. Haters gonna hate. Trolls gonna troll (ok, I made that last one up). These sayings exist for a reason, it’s because everyone who’s ever made it has had to deal with haters. And then they got famous and made these sayings. So, go do the same.

Think carefully before going negative. When you see others say nasty things it makes you realize that while, yes, it hurts those they’re putting down, it also hurts them too. That’s not to say you can never say anything negative — but remember that if you post it online it’s like saying it in front of that person’s face. And their mom’s face. Do you still want to do it? Ok, then go ahead.

There are two types of haters. The kind that can be converted and the kind that can’t. How can you tell the difference? Generally, I genuinely try to explain or solve their problem and if it just explodes further I catalogue them as the second and move on. It’s not always easy. I can’t help feeling that if I say that one last thing, then they’ll agree with me. The truth is people have many different agendas and you’re not always going to change their mind. Sometimes, the only way to win is to not get involved.

Keep going. If you blog, write or produce things while keeping the haters in mind, it’s going to suck. You’re going to be afraid to put yourself out there and that’s how terrible content is produced. You have to believe in what you’re doing and let your fans and triumphs lead you forward (ok that just sounded really cheesy, right? But, also, inspiring? Let’s hope so).

It’s OK if still sucks. Despite all my talk of being above it and even seeing haters as a positive thing, I still get hurt when someone says something mean about me. I still get upset when someone talks trash about the company I work for. I can’t control my initial reaction, but I can control what I do. I try to channel that energy into creating something, instead of destroying it.